Happy Birthday
by psiten
Summary: At some point in the nebulous future, Gil has carefully crafted a birthday surprise for Agatha.


_**Disclaimer:** The original comic Girl Genius is the work of Phil and Kaja Foglio. Characters, settings, and events have been adapted without authorization or approval, and I am making no profit from their use._

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**Happy Birthday**

"Honey, it's ready!" Gil called out, running up the stairs from the kitchen and poking around the rooms on the second floor. "Agatha? Sweetheart, where did you go?" She'd been right here a moment ago. And a few minutes before that, she'd been peeking in through the window (blocked by his motion-activated mirror shield), and before that trying to get access from the cellar. Keeping tabs on where she was while he'd been working on her birthday surprise hadn't been easy, but surely he hadn't _lost_ her. Not _now_, of all times.

"But this is _madness_!" he yelled at no one in particular. "I am _**Gilgamesh Wulfenbach**_! I have faced down armies, have found the lost key of Enkardima, have evaded countless horrors that prowl the heights and shores and skies of Earth! How could _**I**_ have _lost_ her!?" The ceiling watching him shake his fist was none too impressed. Of course, it was _her_ ceiling. For all he knew, the walls were in on it, too.

With a sigh, he went on to searching the next room. Then, he heard the swish of a door and a slam echo through the corridor behind him, followed by a delighted squeal and a loud explosion. It didn't take long for the panic to set in.

He hadn't wanted anyone to disturb the cake he'd baked as his surprise, _obviously_, while he went to get his wife so he could present it to her. So while it had been cooling, before he could put the icing on, he'd created a protection system to keep everyone and everything at bay. Just a slapdash piece of work, nothing _truly_ elaborate, but if she accidentally reversed the polarity on the inner subsystem's arc door, there was a 63% chance she'd blow the whole thing up. The system might backfire, and instead of the intruder (or _his wife_) bearing the effects, the chocolate-caramel cake he'd been baking (and burning and then restarting from scratch) all morning would get doused with the corrosive acid-poison mixture in the spray vents and then set aflame... She might never let him live down leaving that kind of a patchy connection on the door, but what was he supposed to do? This was the _kitchen_, not the lab, and he'd been working fast!

"Agatha!!" he yelled. "I'll be right there, hold on!"

Naturally, the door was locked.

"Agatha!" Gil called out again, fishing a lockpick from his pocket. "Sweetheart, be careful. You don't want to--"

He heard the roar of the fire ports and some clanging of the pots on the ceiling. "Everything is _under control_!" she yelled. It sounded like Agatha might have been on the ceiling, too.

By the time he got to the third and final lock, he'd heard two more explosions -- far more minor, thank goodness -- and the unmistakable clatter and whirr of his little trap coming to a halt.

"Gil!" she called out when he came through the door, a plate of cake and a fork in her hands, not to mention a big chocolate smile. "Sorry, I just couldn't wait."

He breathed and rested against the disaster-strewn table. There were already several automata cleaning up the scorch marks on the walls (the puddles of acid had nearly finished taking care of themselves), his trap was lying in harmless bits all over the table, and his little madgirl was almost entirely without a mark. More impressively, the cake itself was _pristine_, except for the slice she'd taken. His heart would stop pounding any second, he was sure.

"Well, it was for you anyway," Gil replied, and leaned over the plate of cake to give her a kiss. "Happy birthday."

She pulled him back in by the shirt and returned the kiss with enough gusto to remind him that there was more than _one_ reason to marry a girl who liked machines. When Agatha let go, she was talking a mile per minute between bites. "Oh, I just couldn't stop wondering what you were _doing_ all morning! But it was fabulous! _Thank_ you."

"I'm glad you liked it," he said, cutting a slice for himself and putting it on a plate.

"_Liked_ it? Please. You _know_ I love your work. The fire system was cunning, too. I almost didn't notice it at first." He had to smile, but Gil couldn't say he was shocked. He should have known she'd prefer a clank to a confection.

"And besides..." Agatha went on, using her fork to take a bite from his plate and bring it to his mouth, "You put a _cake_ inside."

**The End**


End file.
